Winter Wonderland

I was listening to one of those loud mouth radio shock jocks on the way to dog school the other night. My mistake. Anyway. The DJ said the most obscene thing. I was waiting for the loser to be dragged from the air. IO was rooting for the FCC to fine the station into bankruptcy and then really zap them.

I figured this was a one time thing, but then on the way to work this morning some drive time “team” said the same thing but with any even more offensive modifier.. I was shocked. The things you can say on the air today.

I can curse like a sailor but there are some things I won’t use in mixed company. I mean really.

Well, to be honest the first time I heard it was on the 24/7 Xmas Music station and the second time was on a sugar sweet all hugs all smooches family friendly morning show.

The shocking, obscene thing they both said?

Snow and its traveling companion, Flurries. I hate those words. It wasn’t so bad back at home. Snow didn’t stick to the ground, and when it did bring enough of its little friends with it and it piled up enough to enough to stick, it melted in hours. Snow was a pretty thing. A temporary pretty thing. It would hang on long enough to gets its picture taken and maybe make a snow balls , perhaps a couple of squatty snowmen. It was cold, it was pretty and it was gone. Like a winter festival.

Here the damn thing sticks around a like a Cats Revival. It won’t go away! It just keeps going and going and going. Snow get ugly if it over stays its welcome. It gets dry and hits you in the face. Nasty stuff.

The first year I lived here it snowed. It snowed a lot. 14 inches! They claimed this was a once in a generation thing and I should be sure to take pictures - ”It never does this”! They lied. It does this every damn year! It doesn’t always dump 14 inches of snow, granted. Some years it just coats everything with several inches of ice. Lovely. I loved sitting in the dark while watching in the glow of my flashlight as Mr. Kitty did a pantomime suggesting we cut Dogger, then merely Pupper, open and use her body for warmth like Luke did in Star Wars the Second Movie.

After that I packed up the whole menagerie and we went and camped out at Brosky and Alphagals for four days and approximately 2470 increasingly shrill phone calls, until they finally got my power working again.

You would think this was a region that never experienced a weather related power crisis. Oh, wait, It Is! Over and frickin’ over Year after year. Still can’t make the power stay on, still can’t make it go back on after it has gone out. Every Freakin’ year.

So. Not really looking forward to these flurries. It can’t be good. It never is.

I mentioned Dog School. This week we worked on Down. The Shepard went down like a sub. Dogger went down like flaming dirigible. Only with more screaming.

Sigh. On our abbreviated walk today ( Dogger poked her nose outside and gave me a look) we worked on Down as well. We worked on her spinning around in circles while I tried to force her down. She now will crouch while I repeatedly grab a hold of her collar and tug while chanting Down!Down!Down. She does get down. It’s with her bad self, but she is down and its better then class when the trainer had to all but call in a calf roper to get her down. It will get better. We only have two more classes.